The mother of a 20-year-old Harrisburg man who was shot and killed during a police incident said police shot her son in the heart.

An emotional Kim Thomas on Monday morning said that police at the time of the incident on Sunday night told her they had used a Taser gun.

"No you didn't tase my son. You shot him right in the heart," Thomas said, recounting the incident. "They need to know."

Kim Thomas, the mother of Earl Pinckney (left), said her son was bipolar but not dangerous. Pickney was killed Sunday night during a police incident. Police had responded to reports of domestic disturbance.Ivey DeJesus/PennLive

The Dauphin County District Attorney's office on Monday was investigating the shooting that left Earl "Shaleek" Pinckney dead on Sunday night.

Dauphin County District Attorney Edward Marsico said police responded around 9 p.m. Sunday to a report of a man with a knife who was threatening his mother at Thomas' home in the 2300 block of Green Street.

Thomas on Monday said she and her son and several other relatives had been arguing outside the house and that they had called police, but that police didn't come. She said another argument ensued and this time police showed up at her house.

"We had a little fight, argument like families have arguments," Thomas said.

Thomas said her son, who was known by "Shaleek", had returned to his room, and that she herself was in the room with his sister and her niece.

"They were arguing. They got a little rustling," Thomas said. "I stopped it. I told everybody to get out of the house. I hold my son. I was talking to my son. I know how to control my son. He was calming down. Everything was getting fine."

She said someone -- she assumed police -- was shining a light into the room, and in the next instance, her son had been shot.

"I never saw the cop that hit my son," she said. "At the end of the day, I would like to look him in his face and ask him why did he shoot my son."

Police said when they entered the bedroom, Pinckney was holding a knife to his mother's throat and he did not drop the knife when ordered. As Pinckney's mother tried to pull away from him, one of the four officers who were in the bedroom fired a shot that killed Pinckney, Marsico said.

Thomas insisted that her son had no knife. She showed her neck, to show there were no marks on her skin.

"No, no," she said. "He never had a knife."

Her daughter called police and did tell them Pinckney had a knife, but Thomas said that was because her daughter was scared.

Police, however, say Thomas told them when she was interviewed that her son had a knife.

Pickney's older brother, Marques Thomas, said more than a dozen police had swarmed the house; and that they climbed up to the second-floor roof of the back porch overhang. He said police shot his brother through one of the windows on the second floor at the back of the house.

"Nothing," she said. "He didn't have nothing in his hands. He was holding my head. They never came in."

She said she has lived in Harrisburg for 17 years and that she works for the county and has worked for the school district.

"My kids are respectable" she said.

Thomas said her son was bipolar and that police knew that. She said that was "no excuse for them to come in and shoot him."

"He wasn't dangerous," Thomas said. "He didn't deserve this."

Thomas said that police got everyone out of the house, but that she refused to leave the house. It wasn't clear if that happened before the fatal shooting or after, although she said "how am I supposed to leave when my baby has been shot?"

She said police tried to "drag" her out of the house. She lifted her pants up to her knees to show what she said were the abrasions from a carpet burn.

"These are my burn marks," she said.

Pinckney was in Dauphin Courts several times in 2015, facing misdemeanor charges ranging from criminal mischief to simple assault and terroristic threats. He was sentenced to two years probation on the simple assault charge.

Thomas appealed to "activists" for help and said she would do anything to help mothers get through these types of incidents.

"The violence has to stop," she said. "This needs to stop in Harrisburg .... It happened to me. I know how it feels."